Care Review response: Funding fears over government’s £200m plan to overhaul children’s social care
Joe Lepper
Thursday, February 2, 2023
The government’s plan to overhaul children’s social care has received a cautious welcome by children’s professionals and campaigners, who raise concerns that the funding on offer “falls short” of the investment needed for effective reform.
The Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy, published in response to Josh MacAlister’s review of the sector, includes a package of additional support for carers, children and families backed by £200m investment over the next two years.
This includes funding for kinship carer training, an uplift in foster carer allowances, a pledge to place more children closer to their friends, family and school as well as piloting bespoke early help for families.
But it is less far reaching than the 80 proposals for reform to be backed by £2.6bn over five years, called for in MacAlister’s review, children's sector leaders warn.
NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless welcomed the strategy’s “focus on stable and loving homes and a real intent to finally get things right for vulnerable children and families”.
However, this needs to be backed with “substantial national investment and a reform programme delivered at greater pace”. He warns that without this the government’s ambitions to reform children’s social care “will not be realised” and reiterates the charity’s call for the creation of a cabinet level children’s minister post to coordinate reform.
An immediate reaction to the Government’s plans to reform children’s social care @NSPCC @educationgovuk @JoshMacAlister pic.twitter.com/IdlYh0VoOo
— Peter Wanless (@PeterWanless) February 2, 2023
Andy Elvin, chief executive of fostering charity TACT, praised the strategy’s commitment to invest £9m in training and support for kinship carers and £25m for foster care recruitment and retention.
He also welcomed a commitment to give foster carers an above inflation increase in their allowance.
“But with over 47,000 fostering households and around 57,500 children in foster care we will be interested to see the detail of how this will be achieved with inflation at 9.2 per cent,” said Elvin.
He also questioned the two-year funding pledges for the strategy, saying investment needed to be “in generational terms not political cycles”.
The government’s strategy also fails to make care experience a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act, which Elvin describes as a “bizarre omission”. Already several councils are ensuring looked-after children and care leavers are given this status locally.
Lucy Peake, chief executive of the charity Kinship, is another sector leader to welcome the £9m investment in supporting kinship carers for later this year as “the first ever, major government commitment to support kinship families”.
But she called on the government to “act with urgency” to ensure carers are offered immediate help and to also improve long term funding for kinship care.
"There’s still a long way to go to equalise support between kinship families and foster and adoptive families,” said Peake.
“We especially need the government to commit to introducing financial allowances for all kinship carers, and ensure local authorities get the significant, long-term funding they need so all children can thrive.”
📄 Check out our easy-to-read summary of what the Government has now committed to doing for #KinshipFamilies in its new plan 👉 https://t.co/f3rQuxAGy8
— Kinship (@kinshipcharity) February 2, 2023
Local authority representatives also have concerns around the funding on offer to implement effective reform.
County Councils Network children’s social care spokesman Keith Glazier says the government's £200m investment “falls short of what both the councils and Josh MacAlister argue is required”.
Included in the strategy is a pledge to pilot bespoke early help for families in 12 council areas. Glazier is concerned that they are “only taking place in a select few areas at a time when young people across the country cannot afford to wait”.
“We understand that the public finances are tight, but we urge government to increase the funding allocated for these reforms,” he added.
Meanwhile, Association of Directors of Children’s Services president Steve Crocker warned ministers that “getting change right for children requires proper, equitable resourcing” and is concerned that the level of funding “beyond the next two years remains unclear”.
Children’s Society chief executive Mark Russell welcomed the strategy’s “bold new direction for children’s social care” including a focus on protecting children.
However, this will need “laser like focus” from ministers and “significantly more investment”.
“Without this commitment, we risk that the changes promised will be not delivered fast enough or to the standard we need to truly transform children’s lives,” said Russell.
Former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield, who chairs the Commission on Young Lives, said the strategy’s proposals “are not yet ambitious enough to meet the enormous scale of the challenges facing the system, and the funding still falls well short of the long-term investment that is so desperately needed”.
Elsewhere, National Children’s Bureau chief executive Anna Feuchtwang called for the government to introduce more immediate support for struggling families impacted by the cost-of-living crisis alongside the strategy’s package of measures “otherwise they risk these plans becoming empty promises”.
“While today’s announcements give us hope for a better future, we cannot underestimate the challenges. The cost-of-living crisis is pushing more families into hopeless situations, while inflation eats away at hard-pressed local authority budgets,” she said.
“Social workers are on their knees, as the recruitment and retention crisis spreads across the entire children’s workforce.”
Family Rights Group chief executive Cathy Ashley notes that ministers have “pledged less than a tenth” of the £2.6bn being proposed by MacAlister, who has also raised concerns around lack of funding.
“Failure to make this investment is a false economy,” she warned.
The strategy has also been published in response to a safeguarding review into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Start Hobson in 2020, as well as a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report into profit making by private children’s social care providers.
“Children in care deserve the same love and stability as everyone else", said children's minister Claire Coutinho, "yet we’ve seen from the two tragic murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson that more needs to be done to protect our most vulnerable children.
“Our wide-ranging reforms will put strong relationships at are the heart of the care system."
